Messenger
by timydamonkey
Summary: HPMediator crossover, subtle parody. Suze is on vacation in England with CeeCee and Adam when she finds her life being saved by ghosts. In return, she promises a simple little favour, but it looks like it's going to turn into mission impossible...
1. Chapter 1

Messenger:

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Author's Notes: Ooh, a new fic. I've wanted to do this crossover because I want it to be original. The prologue's very short, I'm afraid, but it needed to be. I'm not too happy with the end, but there you go. And yes, this is intentionally vague, designed to make you review and read on. Or at least read on. 

Amnesia will be updated soon, probably before this. Please understand that I have two coursework deadlines for next week that I'm nowhere near done, I'm out all day tomorrow, I have five pages of French to memorize without prompt and I have my study leave beginning next Friday. By all right I should really be revising now, considering my mocks start on the 6th February. My GCSEs are more important than my writing - understand that. Updates for both Amnesia and this _will_ come, but give me time.

I love writing, but I'm not prepared to fail my mocks for this.

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Prologue:

It was meant to be a vacation.

I never intended this to become a job. When CeeCee first invited Adam and me on vacation (a treat for her birthday, lucky girl), we both agreed with minimum persuasion. We werethinking of lounging around in the sun, relaxing.

Well, we knew that was a _little_ far fetched. Apparently England was kind of a dreary country weather wise, but still, I think we were perfectly within our rights to assume that a vacation meant that we could lounge around, go shopping or something. It was meant to bejust hanging out, really. Not doing anything of substance.

I suppose it's my fault for agreeing with helping out in the first place. I didn't want to seem ungrateful, though. I mean, they _did_ save my life. Not helping somebody after that would make me… well, like Paul. And I'm not exactly aspiring to be like him.

I shouldn't have dragged CeeCee and Adam into this with me. But then, I was here on CeeCee's invitation and it was her parents who were funding this trip (as I was far too aware). I couldn't exactly walk away without a proper explanation, could I? And with CeeCee and Adam's reluctance to even believe in CeeCee's Aunt Pru, I wasn't going to tell them the truth.

So I lied. They came with me and we had a good time – for a while.

Then this.

'Reckless' may as well be my middle name. 'Unthoughtful' and perhaps 'bad friend' could probably fit somewhere in there, too.

Everything seems to have come full circle. Everything seems to start and end in the group that seems… well, cult-like, for lack of a better word. When I first saw them, I half expected to see them dancing around doing ancient rituals of some kind. They were like wacky Satanists or something.

I'm not sure if I should reassess them yet. I'm sure that I'll have to, far sooner than I would like.

We'd been out shopping at a huge mall in London. CeeCee and I were laughing at Adam's over-acting and complete woe at the idea of a complete day of shopping ("the horror!"), and then we heard a voice.

There were loads of people around us, of course, but this voice shouted and seemed deadly. It was like it cut through the air and a lot of the babble had died down.

"DECIST," the voice had said.

We spun around and what we saw made us stare uncomprehendingly. Their attire did not seem to suit their hostile attitude, but unfortunately attitude was the thing that was likely to get us killed.

The lead figure watched the crowd of us and turned his head to another man, long silky blond hair trailing down his soldiers. The other man was gaping – whether at the audacity of the blond guy or our reaction or something else entirely, I couldn't tell. The leader smirked then glanced over his shoulder at the other similarly dressed troops.

"_Now," _he hissed, and within what seemed like seconds, the place was pandemonium.

Adam summed up all of our thoughts in just two words. "Oh, _shit." _

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Author's Note: Review, please? 


	2. Chapter 2

Messenger:_(by timydamonkey)_

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Disclaimer: Meg Cabot owns the Mediator, not me. I don't own Harry Potter, either; that's J. K. Rowling's. I'm making no profit from writing this, I just enjoy these two decent series.

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Author's Note: I'm so, so sorry about the wait. It shouldn't happen again, but I had to rewrite this a lot because while it's meant to poke a bit of fun at the way people tend to write how people take so many ODD things in their stride, it was getting silly. It's meant to be serious… however much it pokes fun. 

Apologies for the shortness.

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Chapter One: 

"_Shopping?"_ asked Adam. "Wait, you're telling me we're spending a _whole day _shopping?"

"Yep," I informed him brightly.

"Oh, the horror," he groaned, staggering to my side a little as if he'd been stabbed or something. A passer-by gave us weird looks, obviously thinking he was drunk or high or something. I stifled a giggle.

CeeCee grinned and we exchanged a look, both grabbing him by an arm. "Come on, Adam," she said, "it'll be _fun."_

I thought about adding a 'misbehave and we'll spend hours looking at make-up', but I decided not to warn him. I supposed it was about time we looked at some, anyway – so we'd go and extend the time if he acted like an idiot. I grinned. Yeah, that'd work…

Then a voice snarled at us all. "_Desist_." Activity seemed to stop like clockwork. When we turned around, what we saw shocked us.

A bunch of guys in dresses stood in front of us, obviously trying to look menacing. This would have been more affective if they looked less like women – or at least, stopped trying to look like them. They didn't seem disconcerted at their clothing, as if they wore it everyday. I shuddered minutely.

"Dude," Adam whispered, "Is it just me or do they have a severe case of gender confusion?"

We laughed. Come on, you'd have laughed too. How often do you get guys taking themselves so seriously who… well, go around dressed as women? It was _funny._

Then the longhaired guy in front (the long hair seemed to make the dresses seem funnier), looked behind him at the ranks of the odd cult. I wondered if they were going to try and painfully recruit people or something. It seems to be cult-like behaviour, right?

"Now," he told them.

They all seemed to smile as one. A man at the front of the crowd seemed unable to contain himself, and he started laughing, too. They could see him, though.

The man at the front turned back around slowly and pointed something at them. I couldn't tell what it was.

"Hey, what's he holding?" I asked. The guy was holding it like it'd be his saviour or something, nothing could hurt him, because he had-

"I think it's a stick," CeeCee said incredulously.

"No way!" said Adam, then he started snickering again. "What's he going to do? Poke him in the eye? Announce a stick duel?"

We all started laughing again. We didn't know it was a decent weapon or anything… why should we? We were just a bit giddy, wondering if all of England was this weird.

Then the man went, "_Crucio_," and the guy hit the floor and started screaming.

"Oh, _shit_," remarked Adam unhelpfully.

That sobered us up, and then people were pushing at the crowd that had gathered behind them, interested in seeing the cult guys. Those at the front, they'd been kind of boxed in. People behind us were running as if their life depended on it, but we were still somewhere in the middle of the throng of people, being, I'm quite sure, crushed to death.

It felt like that anyway.

Do I even need to say that the other cult members had taken this as some sort of cue to start zapping away with their sticks? And they looked like they hurt. A lot.

We managed to escape from the crowd and spent a moment examining our bruises, hanging behind a column and spying on the guys… I mean, if we knew where they were and stayed out of sight, they couldn't get us. That was the plan, anyway. And hey, it wasn't half bad. The many shoppers fleeing the mall – well, it's called a shopping centre here, I think – were just making themselves moving targets. And they were being hit with incredible accuracy.

One of them shouted from somewhere nearby, "_AVADA KEDAVRA_!" and a load of green light came out of the stick.

CeeCee stared at the light. "I don't even want to know how that's possible."

"I'll say," muttered Adam, "Did you hear that guy? Abra cadabra… alacazam, alacazoo! Are these people for real?"

We were pretty sure that they were when the light hit the guy, who just fell and hit the floor. He just died like that.

That was when I wanted to get out of there. I wasn't worried that we were going to get killed or anything, but however much I felt sorry for the guys who were getting killed, hanging around them was so not a good idea. I didn't want to tempt fate and make more work for myself.

"I think we should make a run for it," I told my friends.

CeeCee looked critically at the doors – which, unfortunately, weren't getting bigger and what seemed like hundreds of people were trying to get through. – and said, "It doesn't seem to be doing them too good."

"Then why don't we run down to the other end of this place? I mean, if there's doors on one side, there has to be on the other, right?"

"It's the only plan we have, so we should probably try it," conceded CeeCee. "Adam?"

"I knew one day shopping would get me killed," he murmured absent-mindedly.

"You're not helping," I informed him.

He grinned sheepishly. "Come on, you can't have disasters without amateur dramatics!"

CeeCee and I rolled our eyes.

We started to creep around in the desired direction, trying to be somehow inconspicuous. "If there are doors up here, how come the others aren't going up here?" CeeCee wondered.

"Maybe we're the only people who thought of it," Adam responded, gesturing melodramatically at the crush over by the doors. "It's like pack mentality."

"Adam!" I hissed. "We're supposed to be trying _not_ to attract attention."

"Blasted Muggles!" screeched one of the men, sounding quite insane as he blasted away as professionally as if he was playing a video game and dedicated his life to playing them.

CeeCee chanced a look backwards. "I think they're splitting up," she told us. "If we get up and go now, it might be our last-"

Of course, that was when Adam, who'd also chanced a look back after CeeCee's statement, tripped over his shoelaces and swore loudly.

We all froze.

"It won't be shopping that gets you killed; it'll be your big mouth!" CeeCee was livid.

I looked back nervously. Nobody seemed to be coming. "It's okay guys, I think we're sa-" I started, and then a voice came from in front of us:

"Muggles!" It was the same words as before, but not the same guy. He looked equally crazy though; equally bloodthirsty. The guy was like some kind of Darth Vader wannabe, judging by the way he held a mask in his hands. Why none of them had bothering wearing them was beyond me. Maybe they were making some kind of statement?

Yeah, Suze, as if a statement could get so many people killed… and us included, from how it looked.

The three of us scrambled to our feet as one and shot past him, determined to make it to the doors and into freedom. I'd even join a track meet if it was running that saved my life.

I guess he must have aimed at us, and the next thing I heard was the words, "_Avada Kedavra!"_ The green light reflected from the white polished-looking tiles on the walls. We knew it was coming. There was nowhere to go. Adam and CeeCee both veered off slightly to another direction.

I was going to come to a stop. Better one person dead then all three, and hey, at least I'd get to be with Jesse properly…

The next thing I knew, a voice had yelled, "No!" and I was tackled and flung to the floor. It _hurt_, too. The light tore through the air where I'd been just a moment before and scorched the wall.

Turning back, I saw the robed man staring in astonishment. He looked ready to really finish me off this time – I couldn't see Adam and CeeCee and could only hope that they'd managed to get out – when the guy who seemed to be their leader for the day shouted, "We have done what we were asked to do. Let the Muggles panic. We must return and report to Our Lord about our success."

There was a loud crack and they all disappeared.

I blinked. I felt as if I'd fell into a back-to-front world, then the voice of my apparent would-be rescuer cursed. "Those bastards!"

I closed my eyes again. I so wasn't in the mood for this.

"Is she okay?" asked a feminine voice as she blinked down at me as if I was completely disorientated and of another species.

"Well, she isn't dead, to say the least…" It was a man that time.

"How were you able to touch her?" The woman asked, evidently very concerned.

The man sounded baffled. "I'm not sure. I've actually been able to save somebody from them, despite how many efforts failed. Maybe this was just a freak occurrence and she-"

I sat up then. My mentioning in any sentence with the word 'freak' in was hitting a sore spot. "Hello, I am here, you know!" I demanded loudly.

I guess I scared them. Ghosts always do seem to be inexplicably creeped out when they realize that people can see and hear them – and to think that people thought it was the other way around! Shows that whoever came up with that idea can't have been a mediator… or at least not a very good one.

"You can see us?" The lady questioned. "You… you are what they call a mediator?"

"Well, yeah," I replied, deliberately implying the other thing that I was thinking: _duh._

"Thank goodness!" She looked as if she was going to hug me, and she turned around and grinned at her husband. He did grin at her, grabbing her and spinning her around delightedly.

I felt a bit intrusive, to tell the truth. I was about to leave, but the man seemed to realize. He lifted his hand and said, "Please, hear us out."

"Sorry," the lady said apologetically, "but we've been looking for so long for somebody who could help us, but we've never known where to go."

I didn't really see how they hadn't picked it up of the ghost grapevine, but they were so attached to each other that it seemed that they hadn't even acknowledged its existence. They didn't even seem to be new ghosts, either – I guess ghosts just get lazier and lazier.

The lady clasped my hand with her own chillingly cold ones. "My name is Lily Potter," she told me, voice shaking with excitement, "and I would be very much obliged if you would do a favour for me…"

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Author's Notes: Oh my God, a chapter that's long for my standards AND an evil cliffhanger. At least it should ensure that I actually update earlier than eight months after starting this... -dies- Thanks to my reviewers and reviews are much appreciated. 


	3. Chapter 3

Messenger:_ (by timydamonkey)

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Author's Note: I've not officially taken this story off hold, despite the update, as I don't know if I'll finish it. I'll remove the "HOLD" from the summary as it's a bit contradictory, but I don't really consider this a WIP either. I haven't even thought about this story in years before today. It was never intended to be long, though, and I believe I mentioned this was written to be a bit 'different' in a crossover, back at a time when they were fairly common. I'm going with that original outline, which may seem a little odd, but is undisputably "a bit different".

I haven't read the Mediator in years. I haven't written in first person in years. This means the quality of this chapter will be variable. I've at least tried to keep this chapter consistent to my previous writing style, though. Hopefully it'll work out. Thanks for the reviews and alerts in my absence, they mean a lot to me. More are, as always, welcome.

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Chapter Two:

It sounded like an easy request at first. As a mediator, I've been asked to do a lot of things… from breaking into buildings to passing on messages. I can't say it's fun to act as this spiritual medium – it really puts a crimp in my social life – but it didn't sound that bad. I mean, there's nothing more awkward than telling people messages that might involve personal details or something… I don't want to look like a murderer or a stalker.

But this seemed nice and simple. So simple, in fact, that I should have figured there'd be a catch.

Instead, I'd just said, "Are you _sure_ it needs to be said?" I folded my arms and stared at them. The black-haired man nodded.

Lily added, "It's very important. I know it sounds very silly, but…"

But it's not really my business. Hey, nobody ever made it my job to act as psychiatrist to the dead. I never asked for this job in the first place, but I help where I can. (Father Dom once muttered something about hindering on occasion, too, but really, I have a great track record. A fist in the face or an exorcism… well, it's all a means to an end, right? And I don't use them often anymore. I figure it's my revenge for the police record I'll inevitably build up with all the wanton destruction by the ghosts around me.)

"I get it," I said, flicking my hair out of my face. I bet I looked a fright. I hoped I didn't look _too_ wrecked…

It was at that moment that CeeCee and Adam arrived.

"Suze!" CeeCee yelled. She looked mildly alarmed at my appearance, though she didn't have to ask what was up. We'd all seen those things.

Adam grinned at me. I guess he was pretty shaken up, as he didn't seem to have a joke at the ready. It looked way wrong to see Adam being serious. Not that he never had been before, but it wasn't a common occurrence.

"They can't see us," the man noted from behind me.

I couldn't stop myself giving him a 'well, duh' look. I'm a mediator: it doesn't mean I hang around with a clique of them. I knew Paul, Father D and Jack, and that was pretty shocking. Father D must have been at least sixty and he'd never known another mediator before me. I think that's more typical. We're certainly not common.

CeeCee must have caught the glance as her eyes narrowed, and she's more aware than I'd like of my extracurricular activity.

"Nobody died, did they?" she said, and I realised she assumed that this was related to the previous incident. I didn't think it could be. Lily'd said she'd been looking for ages, so unless she was excessively inpatient, she couldn't have only been dead a few minutes.

"I hope not," I said instead, "but I've got to go out tonight…"

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CeeCee wasn't happy.

I couldn't really blame her, if I thought about it. I doubt I'd be impressed if I'd took a friend on vacation and then they'd then run off. True, she knew that I wasn't exactly heading off for a pub crawl or deliberately running off, but she felt uneasy.

So did I. The ghosts hadn't seemed particularly psychotic – and in my experience, the psychotic ones never really tried to look innocent – but who knew what could happen? I could at least tackle them or something if they got out of hand. Neither of them looked like they'd had much experience with fistfights, and being able to touch them if necessary was a perk of being a mediator.

Or a curse. I'd thought that a few times when I was being strangled. So, you know, whatever's more convenient at the time.

So we left CeeCee and Adam back at our hotel. Adam had been curious and hadn't bothered to hide it, so I'd just told them I'd catch up. I fully intended to, as well; I wasn't going to abandon either of them.

With luck, this errand would be over with in a day or so. And with that, we headed for a place called Hogwarts.

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It didn't quite work out.

The first issue was that I had no idea what a Hogwarts was, let alone _where_ it was. When they first told me, I gave such a confused expression that they'd both seemed surprised at my lack of knowledge.

"Hey, I don't live in England, okay?" I said defensively.

"It's alright." The woman smiled.

"Can we not get a bus or something?" I asked.

That weird look appeared on the man's face again. It was beginning to annoy me; I had no idea what was being insinuated.

"There's normally a train," she said. "But it only comes a few times a year, and now isn't much of a good time."

They'd paced in such bewildered silence until I'd outright demanded to know where it was, and then I'd wasted my time looking up bus routes. I'm not proud of it, okay? But they weren't coming up with anything that didn't sound crazy, and they weren't going to volunteer to go and see what was happening. I supposed it made sense. It'd be a bit of a bummer not to be able to turn pages or whatever.

Thankfully, the stop was a place she seemed to recognise, and then we went trekking. I was beginning to suspect I was going to end up with blisters all over my feet again. At least present company wasn't Paul this time. That was the only positive I could think of.

That's where we hit the big snag. Oh yeah, the others were nothing compared to this.

The closer we got to Hogwarts, I started to feel queasy. It was kind of bewildering: I'd had to sneak in buildings and nearly got killed by ghosts and hadn't felt as weird as I was now. I wondered if I was getting travel sick or something – I'd never been travel sick in my life before, though.

Lily must have known something was up. She'd been watching me carefully, and now finally voiced her thoughts among the scattered small talk we'd had. "Are you okay, Suze?" She must have picked up my name from CeeCee earlier. "You look pale."

I shrugged.

"Maybe she's shocked about everything that's happened," said the man. "It wasn't really a pleasant experience."

"I've been through similar," I said, and it was true. My life was made of unpleasant experienced, it seemed.

"Hopefully you'll be able to rest," Lily murmured. "We're there now."

I was silent for a minute, scanning the landscape. "But… there's nothing _here_!" I protested. I was beginning to wonder if these ghosts were a bit crazy with their inability to be practical and odd clothing choices (if spirits even _made_ that choice).

"What?" questioned the man. "It's difficult to miss." He waved his hand to the distance. "It's the castle!"

I tried to look in the direction he pointed, but was assaulted with such a feeling that I'd really begun feeling nauseous. Nontheless, I stared as hard as I could – and I began to see what was, undoubtedly, a castle.

Or, more accurately, _had_ been a castle. The majority of it had gone, large sections completely disappeared, while other parts looked majorly structurally unsound. Chunks of stone lay abandoned where they fell on the grass. From a remaining piece of building, a sign hung. A warning.

I hoped whatever had destroyed the place hadn't left any ghosts hanging around. I already had my hands full.

I wondered when these people had died. It didn't seem to me they had been around since the time this place must have fell, though. I shared my bedroom with Jesse, and it was obvious how old he was, from his values down to his tone of speech. And fashion sense. I wondered if calling him to ask for advice while the ghosts in question stood next to me would be considered rude.

It was probably Jesse's sense of manners that stopped me doing so.

"Look," I said soothingly, trying to use some of Father Dom's 'peaceful mediation techniques' that he'd tried to drill into me. It wasn't something that came naturally to me. "I don't think there's going to be anybody there to give this message to."

"It's a boarding school," said the man. "There are always people there."

A school in a castle?

I decided that way wasn't going to work. Besides, Father D didn't need to know that it had only lasted one line, right? "I'm sorry, but it's in pieces. I don't think anybody will still be alive." Even I wasn't quite tactless enough to say, 'But, as you're dead, I'm sure you'll be able to find any ghosts you want and pass on messages personally.' I didn't suspect they'd appreciate it much.

"No, it's not," said the man, and I sighed. It was going to be one of those days.

"Are you a Muggle?" Lily suddenly asked me, as if this was a moment of immense revelation.

I blinked. "A _what?_" I couldn't tell if it was meant to be an insult or a pun or something. Muggle? Muddled? Maybe she'd said that and I got confused. It'd at least be appropriate.

"That makes far too much sense." The man looked even wearier, all of a sudden. "A Muggle is a non-magic person."

I looked sceptical, but I remembered being at the shops. "Are you telling me those people were some sort of warlocks?" It was all getting a bit much.

"Wizards," corrected the man. He stared at the horizon for a moment then laughed. As his wife looked questioningly at him, he said, "Well, at least we can't be punished for breaking the Statue of Secrecy."

An unwilling smile crawled onto the woman's face, but she sobered so quickly I wondered if I was imagining it. "You can't tell anybody," she said. "And I'm sorry for us assuming you were a witch… I'd always thought, from what I'd heard about mediators, they'd _have_ to be witches. My family were Muggles, and they didn't believe in ghosts at all."

I didn't point out that, having been seeing them since when I was small, it was pretty obvious that I'd either decide I was seeing ghosts or that I was otherwise going a bit crazy.

"We'll have to find another way." The woman looked conflicted for some reason, so I decided to outright ask her.

"Is that good or bad?"

"This would have been safer. Dumbledore…" She trailed off. I assumed Dumbledore must be a person; I couldn't see what else would be called that. "But it was James' idea, and it was always a risk… it's flashy."

"Nobody else would do it," James defended himself. "I thought it might make it seem more believable."

The thought occurred to me that for once one of my clients had realised that my claims may not readily be believed. I had to admit, it did all sound rather ridiculous out loud.

"We'll have to think of another way." Lily looked visibly deflated.

"Could I go back to my friends now?" I asked. "You guys sort something out; I don't want to ruin my holidays with them."

I wasn't sure if they were going to protest, but I was practically swaying at this point. It hadn't gotten any better when we'd reach the castle, just worse. With the conversation tapering off, I was losing any distractions from the irritation.

"Ah!" The man exclaimed. "Better get her away from the Muggle-repelling charms. Come on, Suze…"

And we started the long trek to get back to my hotel, me half-supported by two people nobody else could see.


End file.
